1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital television broadcasting, and more particularly to systems and methods for handling forward error correction code blocks in a receiver apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting (DTMB) standard, a signal frame may not always encapsulate an integer number of forward error correction (FEC) code blocks. For example, when the modulation scheme employed is 32-quadrature amplitude modulation (32-QAM) or 4-quadrature amplitude modulation Nordstrom-Robinson (4-QAM-NR), each single signal frame may respectively include 2.5 or 0.5 FEC code blocks. Accordingly, there is no guarantee that a FEC code block systematically starts in alignment with the header portion of each signal frame.
For facilitating synchronization of the FEC decoder in a receiver apparatus, one known approach consists in using system information related to a super frame that includes hundreds of signal frames. However, this approach may be inefficient as the system information related to the super frame may be corrupted owing to channel distortion. As a result, the synchronization of the FEC decoder may be adversely affected.
Therefore, there is presently a need for a system and method that can address the foregoing issues and handle FEC code blocks more efficiently in a receiver apparatus.